WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM?
These words, graffitied around the Hagley Hall estate near Stourbridge, West Midlands, have haunted the local population since a bunch of schoolboys pulled the skull of a woman out of a tree in its grounds in April 1943. Was she a local good time girl gone bad? A witch? A Nazi spy? No one has ever solved the mystery of her identity nor why the anonymous author of an 80-year graffiti trail won’t let her rest. Author CATHI UNSWORTH presents the strange true case that informed her 2018 book, That Old Black Magic.
Cathi Unsworth is a novelist, writer and editor who lives and works in London. Her most recent book is Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth (2023) She began her career on the legendary music weekly Sounds at the age of 19 and has worked as a writer and editor for many other music, film and arts magazines since, including The Guardian, Financial Times, Fortean Times, Bizarre, Melody Maker, Mojo, Uncut, Volume and Deadline.
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